Mediamark partners with MBI for proposed 2011 launch of US Touchpoints

US— 2011 has been earmarked as a potential launch date for the US version of the UK’s Touchpoints multimedia survey and planning database.

The Media Behaviour Institute (MBI), the holder of the US licence for the Touchpoints name and methodology, has partnered with GfK’s Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) to run the study, which collects data on when, where and how people are using the variety of media channels open to them.

MBI has been working on transferring the survey to the US since June 2008, when it secured the Touchpoints licence from the UK’s Institute for Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). Initially pursuing an observational approach to tracking media use, MBI has now developed an iPhone application through which study participants can self-report where they are, what they are doing and what media they are consuming every half hour over a 10-day period.

Pilot studies using this iPhone media diary have already been completed in Detroit and Indianapolis, administered by MRI and involving 50 adults. The partners said cooperation had “exceeded expectations” with 82% of invitees agreeing to participate and 90% of participants seeing the study through to completion.

Respondents are recruited via MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer, an annual face-to-face survey of 26,000 consumers covering their usage of nearly 6,000 product and service brands across 550 categories, along with magazines and newspaper readership, internet usage, TV viewership, national and local radio listening, Yellow Pages usage and out-of-home media exposure.

It is the diary data mixed with the American Consumer survey information that will form the basis of the Touchpoints database. “We are on our way to establishing a new standard for integrated research to support multichannel planning,” said MBI chief executive Bill Moult.

Referring to the pilot test, Moult’s MRI counterpart, Kathi Love (pictured), said: “We knew where a respondent was, who they were with, what they were doing and what media they encountered along the way. And because these consumers are respondents to MRI’s Survey of the American Consumers, we also know what they buy and how they think. This facilitates the highest form of context planning.”

Meanwhile, wave three of the UK’s Touchpoints survey is due to report in July.

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Readers' comments
(1)

Rolfe Swinton | 1-Mar-2010 11:52 pm

MBI's new Touchpoints technology shows the great advantages of using mobile technology to provide real-time data capture tools in a format that consumers are used to using, and even can enjoy!